Is first-past-the-post on the way out?
This election could signal dramatic changes to elements of our democracy. In a series continuing today, the Star examines four key areas that party leaders have set their sights on reforming.
OTTAWA— The Kiwis do it. So do the Germans and Scots.
Now Kelly Carmichael is hopeful that after years of study, debate and political promises, Canada may be on the brink of doing it, too.
“It” is electoral reform, putting in place a voting system that ensures the makeup of Parliament better reflects the ballots cast.
Indeed, the October election could be the last federal election using the first-past-the-post system as both Liberals and NDP have vowed changes to how Canadians elect their MPs.
“I have to say we are pretty hopeful,” said Carmichael, the executive director of Fair Vote Canada, which advocates for electoral reform.
The organization is getting ready to launch a national campaign this month to put a spotlight on the issue and enlist the backing of candidates running in this election.
Boosters of the idea believe electoral reform would bring new voices and fresh ideas to Parliament. It would shake up the big-party dominance of the political system. It would lead to consensus-driven government and better policies.
Yet depending on the alternative model chosen, critics see a confused electorate and a Parliament that yields not compromise or consensus but paralyzing standoffs.
Carmichael says reform gives voice to groups sidelined by the current voting system. She notes that in jurisdictions that have introduced proportional representation, more women get elected.
And because of the greater diversity of political viewpoints, it produces better policies because of the need for consensus, she said.
“You change the dynamic of government,” she said in an interview.
“When parties come together and develop policy on behalf of the citizens, it’s usually better policy that lasts the test of time,” Carmichael said.
Carmichael has fresh hope because both the Liberals and New Democrats are advocates of change.
Indeed, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau vowed in June to bring in electoral reforms, though just how that reform would take shape under a Liberal government is unclear. Trudeau said an all-party parliamentary committee would be struck to consider the possibilities — from ranked ballots, mandatory voting and proportional representation — and make recommendations.
“Within 18 months of forming gov- ernment, we will bring forward legislation to enact electoral reform,” reads a Liberal policy document. The New Democrats have long backed changes to the electoral system and have pledged to introduce a mixed-member proportional system. “The current system represents some voices and silences others. We think Canadians deserve a proportional system where every vote counts,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said in a statement last December.
What advocates of reform want replaced is Canada’s “single-member plurality” system, also known as “first-past-the-post,” under which the candidate in each riding with the most votes wins a seat in the Commons.
It’s a winner-takes-all system that can see political parties win a ma- jority of seats with less than a majority of votes.
For example, in the 2011 federal election, the Conservatives took 39.6 per cent of the popular vote and got 54 per cent of the seats in the Commons, ensuring them a comfortable majority.
The New Democrats took 30.6 per cent of the votes and got 33 per cent of seats. The Liberals’ 18.9 per cent of the votes translated into just 11 per cent of the seats. And the Green party got 3.9 per cent of the votes yet just one seat, equal to a 0.3 per cent share of the spots in Parliament. But the House of Commons would have been very different had Canada had proportional representation, which awards seats according to the percentage of votes received.
The Conservatives would have been knocked down to 122 seats and the New Democrats would have remained the same at about 95 seats. The Liberals would have gone up to 59 seats, the Bloc Québécois would have gone up to 19 seats and the Green party would have gone up to 13 seats under the scenario, according to Fair Vote Canada.
Critically, that scenario would have left the Tories short of the seats needed for a majority, setting in place another spell of minority government for Canada.
In 2004, the Law Commission of Canada said reform of the federal voting system should be a priority for politicians. It said Canada was in the grip of a “democratic malaise” marked by declining turnout, increasing cynicism and growing disengagement by young people.
It faulted the existing system for being “overly generous” to the party that wins a plurality of the vote, allowing it to use its “artificially swollen” majority to dominate the political system.
It contributed to the underrepresentation of women, minority groups and Aboriginal Peoples. And it said that vast numbers of voters who didn’t vote for the winning candidate were then disconnected from politics.
The report said that Canadians want an electoral system that better reflects today’s society, one that features a “broader diversity of ideas and is more representative of Canadian society.”
Academic Nelson Wiseman says there is a simple reason electoral reform never gets acted on. “It’s not in the interests of whatever party wins,” said Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto and head of the university’s Canadian studies program.